


Assume a can opener...

by Anonymous



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Lockout, Multi, caveat lector, unfinished update schedule uncertain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-09
Updated: 2019-02-09
Packaged: 2019-10-07 14:33:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17367671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Wizarding England implodes over the course of one week in summer...and of course it happened when James was visiting the Evans family.





	Assume a can opener...

Can I please please please come over? says the note in James Potter's messy scrawl. Lily Evans can identify the teen's handwriting, even though it was not signed, and probably wouldn't have agreed, if it weren't for... Petunia. 

But first she says back: I don't control visitation policies!

No, I mean your house!

Half reluctantly, Lily says "okay, for a couple hours". It wasn't just Petunia; Remus asked if she would please help answer the boys' questions, because he was sick and Muggle Studies was suddenly de rigeur, this year, with the specter of this weird Voldemort and a pureblood supremacy movement lingering in the wizarding air.

\--

Slytherin house, it should be understood, by this point in history has one major commonality with Hufflepuff: a united face must be presented to outsiders. Loyalty is paramount. Intrahouse politics are not to cross over into interhouse politics.

The wider world doesn't work like that. Or rather, it does, in places, but the lines aren't so clearly drawn. This is why a fifth year potions prodigy is writing for the eyes of Lucius Malfoy, who called him a mudblood under his breath and pretended nothing untoward had happened in the next instant, while visiting Narcissa Black (in seventh year). This is also why Eileen Snape, who is not vain, cares little for her appearance, powders her black eye, covers the bruises on her arms with long sleeves this week when she does the (meagre) shopping.

\--

"Huh," James Potter says aloud, when no answer comes at the door, that, unbeknownst to him, belongs to the Evans' next door neighbor, an elderly and mostly deaf woman who enjoys her post-lunch naps. "Maybe she's not home." For he had persuaded his father into letting him come by portkey.

The sixteen year-old holds out his wand for the Knight Bus, assuming he ought to go home, or at least to a magic locale and call on the Evanses another time, but nothing happens.

"Lumos," he whispers surreptitiously, pointing his wand into the bush by the door. There is a small, almost inaudible fizzing noise, instead of the expected results of the elementary spell. 

Suddenly, James Potter is very scared.


End file.
